I felt the need to register somewhere and get my feelings about Shawn Michaels off my chest. I'm not a lurker. I haven't even watched wrestling since 2000, EXCEPT for Shawn's matches.
I started watching in 1994. I was 8 years old. I didn't care for wrestling at all before then, even though I remember one of my best friends kept bugging me about it all the time, so I started watching with him. He was a big Hogan and Savage fan, but being the impressionable kid that I was, I found them to be too "80s", too old for me. I was a big football fan by that time, and my favorite team was the Cowboys, not only because I lived in Dallas at the time, but because the players were young, had personalities (Michael Irvin probably had too much), and were flashy, but consistent in their ability to win football games. I believe these characteristics became the main reasons why I naturally gravitated towards Shawn Michaels. He was cool, hip, and a little arrogant, but he always put on the best performance of the night. I preferred Shawn over guys like Lex Luger because Shawn's gimmick at the time was more rebellious with Diesel at his side.
Ironically, the very first night I watched wrestling, Shawn fought Bret Hart on Raw. It was right before the Royal Rumble 1994. The first PPV I saw was WrestleMania X, so it's no wonder why I became such a huge fan of Shawn almost immediately. He did things that nobody else did, and I thought he had the best gimmick, the best entrance attire (not even close on that one), the best music, and the best theatrics.
It wasn't too long after WrestleMania X that Shawn started his Heartbreak Hotel segment. As a kid, I thought this further established him as being far cooler than everybody else. This was pretty strange for me to believe, considering the following:
-He wore very long earrings then
-He dressed like a male stripper or a gigolo
-Having hearts all over your pants is a liitle "geigh"
I didn't even really know if his gimmick was supposed to be a biker, a male prostitute (I knew what that was at that age), or a gay man. This seems superficial, but at that age, you're taught that real men have short hair, don't wear jewelry, and are tough guys. Considering this, I probably should have thought Shawn was gay, but he had so much charisma that I remember thinking only he could pull off wearing that kind of entrance attire and dancing to that music. Think about that. Anybody else would have looked like an idiot doing all of that stuff, but somehow Shawn made it look good.
I definitely preferred Shawn as a heel from 1994 to 1998, but I still loved him as a face. There was always something about his mannerisms throughout the match as a face that made me laugh and pull for him. Like when he'd have a guy in a headlock, and the ref would start the five count, he would very quickly pull his arms off and then back to the hold, and kind of shrug his shoulders nonchalantly. He was the best at telling a story throughout the match, and I always felt like he was somehow more real than the other wrestlers, because he had these little idiosynchratic ways about him.
Of course, my favorite time was 1997-1998. I remember thinking he really looked like he was having fun out there, and after reading his autobiography, I see why. I remember all the funny promos and acts that Shawn did, and almost all of his entrances during this time were awesome. His guest referee entrance at Summerslam 1997 was awesome. I remember him standing on top of the IYH set against Vader (?). His Survivor Series 97 entrance, his IYH DX entrance, his WM XIV entrance, his Badd Blood and Ground Zero entrances, and his Mind Games entrance all are permanently engraved in my memory.
I remember what an epic fail his Ground Zero entrance was. First he spits at the crowd, and somebody in the crowd hits him with something, so he starts doing the crotch chop at them. His pyro didn't go off during his pose, and then when it finally did, it was spazzing out, and Shawn was visibly upset and did the jack off motion with his hand at the pyro. One of WWE's DVDs has this match on it, and they cut out his entrance, probably for these reasons. I can't tell you how I remember those things, I just do. To me, his entrances and his entrance attires were a massive part of his character. He didn't really have a gimmick other than being cocky, so his character was strictly based off his promos and his mannerisms during his entrances.
I stopped watching wrestling about the time that WCW was bought out. I always had this hope in the back of my mind that Shawn would come back, but by this time I had given up on that possibility. I didn't entirely miss him, as Austin, Rock, Mankind, and HHH were all awesome from 98-2000, but it just wasn't the same without Shawn. When a friend of me told me he was coming back for SummerSlam 02, I had to watch. I didn't care about the rest of the card, only Shawn. It was a great match. For the next 8 years, the ONLY wrestling matches I would ever watch were his PPV matches at a friend's house. He had some great matches with HHH, Jericho, Angle, Undertaker, and others.
I'm 24 years old now, and I don't see myself ever getting into wrestling like I did during the mid to late 90s. Maybe it was a product of me being the right age (10-14) at the right time, but I really think it was because of Shawn Michaels. I learned to love Austin and Rock, and there's no doubt they were both great, but Shawn was the first, and he'll be the last for me.
